Violence As Seen Through The Looking Glass

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A little over two months ago, after experiencing chest pains, I underwent coronary double bypass surgery. This article doesn't deal with that experience, but perhaps in the future, I'll write about it in some detail. The surgery did, however, set the stage for the subject and title of this article.

I'm now feeling much stronger and my doctors tell me I can expect a full recovery. However, in the first few weeks after such an operation, one is quite weak and tired and limited as to the activities they can perform. In those first weeks, you sleep a lot, perform certain exercises as best you can and watch television. I've never watched so much television in my life as I did in those two or three weeks and doing so allowed me to see the United States in a light I had never before considered. I watched movies on premium movie channels, documentaries (primarily on TLC, The Discovery Channel and The History Channel), new TV series, reruns, game shows and, overall, saw a broad spectrum of what the American public sees, each week through the looking glass of their television screens. The picture this painted of the United States was not pretty.

I have, in past articles, been quite critical of the NRA and the combative stance of the pro gun crowd in this country. I also wrote an article about rudeness in the United States. In response, I received comments both pro and con. The dissenting remarks were, in many cases, quite hostile and took me to task for not knowing that (1) Americans have a God given right to own as many firearms of all types as they desire, (2) these firearms are necessary in case the United States Government decides to storm and enslave the countries' entire population by force and (3) any attempt to regulate firearms is the work of left wing, socialist, subversives. I wrote off the rude and offensive tone of these remarks as simply good old boys exercising their right of free speech as they howled at the moon about their love affair with guns. Oh, how wrong can one be as I now know the problem with guns and violence in this country is much more deeply rooted than simply blaming the gun lobby and it's followers.

It dawned on me during my daily vigil in front of my TV set, that if one were to remove all violence from TV (even excluding the war dramas and documentaries), we'd be left with only a few game and cooking shows and with newscasts that lasted only five to ten minutes. This country was built on a solid bedrock of violence. From the moment we first landed on the shores of this country in 1492, the die was cast. We took the country from the Indians by force during which the U.S. army embarked on a systematic plan to either kill or enslave the Indian nations. They understandably fought back and as settlers moved west, they did so under a cloud of violence.

The violence wasn't just confined to the fight with the Indians as all over the west, the rule of the gun or rope or torch reigned supreme. Being the faster gun made you right whatever the dispute. Might did indeed make right and this was proven time after time.

Slavery was introduced to this country and, again, was both initiated and enforced by violence. Slaves were considered to be just property and as such, owners could do pretty much what they wanted with them. After slavery was abolished, the black race was set free, but this proved to be in name only . The Ku Klux Klan rose out of the dust and destruction of the civil war and cowards hiding their faces behind sheets and masks used violence to drive home their cruel and terribly misguided opinions.

Next came the gang wars of the twenties and thirties where Al Capone and his many cohorts used guns, knives and bombs to carve Chicago and other major cities into crime lord fiefdoms. Again, he who used weapons in the most vicious a manner, usually won.

Through all of this, people owned guns. They were used to break the law, uphold the law and for protection. As much as I abhor guns and the destruction they bring in today's society, you can bet if I'd lived in the days of the old west, I'd have learned to use a gun and would have strapped it to my side before leaving my house. In that day and age, there was no other choice.

I'm not excusing the gun crowd of today for their beliefs and actions. In spite of the carnage and destruction that happens every day to our country (such as the tragedy at Columbine High School), they still loudly proclaim that guns are in no way responsible for the violence in America. They might as well say that cows aren't responsible for milk or that bees just accidentally live around honey. No, I certainly can't condone what they do, but I now know they are only a part of the perpetual climate of violence that has darkened this country since it began.

Some older democratic countries do not have the violence problem that we have in the United States. England, as an example, has far less violence than we do and managed to pass responsible gun laws almost a hundred years ago. Canada had a wild and violent beginning just as we did, but managed to pass their own sensible gun laws and, because of this, have far less violent deaths than we do.

All of this heritage of violence is reflected in most of our television fare. We glorify sick, perverted killers and show their foul deeds in graphic detail in our movies. The fact that most get killed by the movie's hero (usually in more graphic detail) doesn't detract from the fact that this fictional violence fosters real violent behavior in some. Yes, 99.9 percent of the people who watch these violent movies don't run out their front doors and do someone in with an ax or chain saw. However, a few do and even those few are too many.

In some of my previous work, I've offered a suggestion or two as to how to successfully address whatever problem or condition I was writing about. That's not the case here. I have no idea how to rid our country of it's violent atmosphere. It was born when our country started and movies and television seem to do all they can to perpetuate it's existence.

Am I suggesting we censor the media as to their content? No, as I believe censorship carries its own bag of trouble and would only unleash the right wing zealots who want to dictate what we can see, hear and think. God forbid that we give this crowd any more inroads into our lives than they already have.

Tougher guns laws will put a dent in the problem, but won't make it go away. No law can totally stop the violence that's in the hearts of many of our citizens. If you catch a man stealing your TV set, take out your gun and kill him. That idea is popular with many in our country, as if a TV set or any other possession was worth a human life.

No, I don't have an answer, but until someone or some group figures out a way to slow the violent atmosphere in our country, we can never truly claim to be a civilized nation. A few weeks ago national news told how the father of one player killed the father of another player after a children's game of hockey. He beat him to death while the victim's son watched in horror!! A civilized nation? No, we still have a long way to go before that claim will be true.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ken Kreps lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife. He has written a number of published articles, essays and short stories, as well as numerous consumer and business pieces. Ken has also written scripts for Imagination Theater, an award winning audio drama series heard on over 150 commercial radio stations across the nation.

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